The Michter’s US 1 Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

750 ml neo-retro bottle

Tasting notes:The nose on the Michter’s US 1 Bourbon teases, like the innocent flirtations of the kid next door when you were growing up. Which is to say, there is a lot of potential that’s unburdened by the carnal knowledge of erotic expectations. (Wait, guys, is this one of these TMI situations you tell me to avoid?) Anyways, there’s a corncob pipe carved out of a green corn cob, filled with dried husks, corn silk, slivered telephone pole splinters, and the promise of shenanigans. Fittingly, the pipe was stuck into the dried apple head of an Appalachian doll, evoking the simple pleasures of the agrarian past that exists in song and stories.

The mouth is redolent with nostalgia ennobled into a neo-retro interior decorating movement. As Stephen eloquently put it, using his big-boy words, “This is fucking nice!” John, contrapuntally, rejoined that he could drain the whole bottle at the opening night of a Lars von Trier film festival held in Helsinki. For me, there was that magic blend of caramel corn, carnival rides, and weaponized avarice: You’re not going to drain this whole bottle, John! You hear me? We’re splitting this, so I can drink my half during the last night of the Buster Keaton film festival held in Peoria!

The finish is near perfect; it’s beeswax fashioned by Burt, the eponymous Burt of Burt’s Bees, into a miracle cure for phlebitis. This same wax, had it been employed by Daedalus, would’ve allowed Icarus to soar to Apollo’s chariot, where he might have joined the Sun god’s public relations sun-salutation team. Let it be known that the bees were Icelandic bees; that is, a fine kind of volcanic, marauding spirit underlaid the honey that confected the eddying swirl down my gullet. Finally, I also got tardigrades cuddling on the front of my tongue, chastely, but feelingly.

Rating:
On the scale of “old meets new”–The Michter’s US 1 Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey is the sun, rising to greet 15 stragglers at the Burning Man festival, who are blithely unaware that the Man was Burnt two days ago and that they are the only revelers left–They dance unencumbered by the strictures of society, and fool themselves into thinking that is they who greet the sun.